Gossip Girl actor Chanel Maya Banks has taken to Instagram with a lengthy statement slamming claims by her family that she had gone missing before accusing them of long-term abuse.
Chanel Maya Banks goes ‘missing’
Earlier this month, Banks was reported missing by her family after a welfare check found that she was not at the Los Angeles apartment she shares with her husband. They claimed they hadn’t heard from the 36-year-old since October 30, which was cause for alarm.
The situation made worldwide headlines after Banks’ cousin Danielle-Tori Singh created a GoFundMe fundraiser to raise money for the family to go to California to look for the missing actor. According to Deadline, Singh claimed that Banks’ husband told her that Banks “did not want” to be found and would reach out to them “when she was ready”.
However, Singh was still alarmed.
“Five days without hearing from my cousin is red flags and alarm bells,” Singh told ABC 7 Eyewitness News.
“She doesn’t go more than 48 hours without speaking to me or her mum…That girl is more like a big sister to me.”
Within days, Banks was located by police safe and unharmed in Texas. On Thursday (local time), Banks updated her Instagram bio to say “I am not missing”.
Despite the LAPD’s confirmation, Singh told ABC it was “fake news”, vowing to continue handing out flyers after she alleged that the woman who claimed to be Banks in the police’s bodycam footage was not Banks.
Banks denies that she was ever a missing person
In a statement to True Crime News on Thursday, Banks denied that she was ever a missing person.
“I have met with the police and verified that not only am I okay, but I’m finally free,” she said.
On Friday, Banks took to her own Instagram Stories with a lengthy statement in which she accused her family of “abuse, manipulation, and outright endless torment” that she had “endured continuously since I was a defenceless baby, at the hands of my own so-called family, who are all so very ‘concerned’ about my current whereabouts”.
In the post, she said that she was heading to Texas to be baptised by Pastor Robert Clancey and “saw it as an opportunity to escape my cage”.
Banks claimed that she has not spoken to her cousin for “over 15 years” and described her as “fame-hungry”.
“For decades my family has been my spiritual, physical, and emotional warden, giving me zero authority of my personage,” she wrote.
“I was not allowed to make any decisions in life in any way without their approval.”
Banks concluded her post by urging her followers not to donate to any GoFundMe which says she was missing. The GoFundMe page has since been taken down.
Banks played Jenny Humphries’ (Taylor Momson) friend Sawyer Bennett in Gossip Girl but has also had acting credits in Blue Bloods and Twelve. She has reportedly since moved into writing.
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